Author Archives: V. Ramanan

John Maynard Keynes On Import Controls

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I was rereading the article Keynes And The Management Of Real National Income And Expenditure by Wynne Godley from 1983 (page 157 in that book, footnote 20) and he reminds us of this letter from JMK published in The Collected Writings Of John Maynard Keynes, Volume XXVI, pages 287-289, that he thought that import controls work much better than movements in the exchange rates.

To J. M. FLEMING, 13 March 1944

Dear Fleming,

Your paper on quotas versus depreciation, sent me with your letter of February 14th, raises a very interesting question. But, for my own part, I am not one of the’ most economists’, to whom in paragraph 2 you attribute the view that disequilibrium ought, so far as possible, to be corrected by movements in the rate of exchange rather than by controls over commodity trade.

There is, first of all, to the contrary the simple-minded argument that, after all, restriction of imports does do the trick, whereas movements in the rate of exchange do not necessarily do so.

…

A Concise History Of “Circular And Cumulative Causation” From Anthony Thirlwall

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In Anthony Thirlwall’s essay Nicholas Kaldor: A Biography, 1908–1986, (first published in 1987 and republished in 2015, [note: he has a full biography too]), there’s a para which has both the history of Kaldor’s thoughts on circular and cumulative causation and a short explanation:

As Kaldor grew older (and perhaps wiser?), he lost interest in theoretical growth models and turned his attention instead to the applied economics of growth. Two things particularly interested him: first, the search for empirical regularities associated with ‘interregional’ (country) growth rate differences, and secondly, the limits to growth in a closed economy (including the world economy). The distinctive feature of all his writing in this field was his insistence on the importance of taking a sectoral approach, distinguishing particularly between increasing returns activities on the one hand, largely a characteristic of manufacturing, and diminishing returns activities on the other (namely agriculture and many service activities). Kaldor’s name is associated with three growth ‘laws’ which have become the subject of extensive debate.73 The first ‘law’ is that manufacturing industry is the engine of growth. The second ‘law’ is that manufacturing growth induces productivity growth in manufacturing through static and dynamic returns to scale (also known as Verdoorn’s Law). The third ‘law’ states that manufacturing growth induces productivity growth outside manufacturing, by absorbing idle or low productivity resources in other sectors. The growth of manufacturing itself is determined by the growth of demand, which must come from agriculture in the early stages of development, and from exports in the later stages. Kaldor’s original view74 was that Britain’s growth rate was constrained by a shortage of labour, but he soon changed his mind in favour of the dynamic Harrod trade multiplier hypothesis of a slow rate of growth of exports in relation to the income elasticity of demand for imports, the ratio of which determines a country’s balance of payments constrained growth rate. Because fast growing ‘regions’ automatically become more competitive vis á vis slow growing regions, through the operation of the second ‘law’, Kaldor believed that growth will tend to be a cumulative disequilibrium process—or what Myrdal once called a ‘process of circular and cumulative causation’,—in which success breeds success and failure breeds failure. He articulated these ideas in several places, most notably in two lectures: his Inaugural Lecture at Cambridge in 1966,75 and in the Frank Pierce Memorial Lectures at Cornell University in the same year.76 Most of the debate concerning Kaldor’s growth laws has centred on Verdoorn’s Law and the existence of increasing returns. Kaldor drew inspiration for the theory from his early teacher, Allyn Young, and his neglected paper ‘Increasing Returns and Economic Progress’.77 Young, in turn, derived his inspiration from Adam Smith’s famous dictum that productivity depends on the division of labour, and the division of labour depends on the size of the market. As the market expands, productivity increases, which in turn enlarges the size of the market. As Young wrote ‘change becomes progressive and propagates itself in a cumulative way’, provided demand and supply are elastic. Hence increasing returns is as much a macroeconomic phenomenon as a micro-phenomenon, which is related to the interaction between activities, and cannot be adequately discerned or measured by the observation of individual industries or plants. Kaldor was convinced by theoretical considerations and by his own research, and that of others, that manufacturing is different from agriculture and most service activities in its ability to generate increasing returns in the Young sense.

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Notes

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  1. See A. P. Thirlwall (ed.), ‘Symposium on Kaldor’s Growth Laws’, Journal of Post-Keynesian Economics, Spring 1983.
  2. See Causes of the Slow Rate of Economic Growth of the United Kingdom (CUP, 1966).
  3. As note 74
  4. Strategic Factors in Economic Development (Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, 1967).
  5. Economic Journal, December 1928.

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I don’t see much reference to short book Strategic Factors In Economic Development anywhere and I wasn’t even aware of the book till I reread this passage again recently. Must get it. Although according to this review, there’s nothing much in addition to Causes Of The Slow Rate Of Economic Growth Of The United Kingdom.

I have never been able to appreciate Kaldor’s earlier models, perhaps he tried to unsuccessfully build a stock-flow coherent model.

Also, in recent times, Post-Keynesians have come to the realisation that trade elasticities are endogenous not fixed parameters. To me that the most crucial aspect of circular and cumulative causation, although the Verdoorn Law plays a role too.

Link

UNCTAD Trade And Development Report 2021

This year’s trade and development report is out, and it says Chapters 1 and 2 only but for some reason, the full report hasn’t been released yet. Maybe it only has two chapters.

The report warns of “unfavourable conditions for most developing regions” (Section 2.C.3).

There is an interesting projection of current account balances with explanations around this scenario leading to the pessimism.

Keynes, Robinson And Mercantilism

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Here’s an interesting insight from Joan Robinson on free trade. According to her, when Keynes rose to popularity, the thing that worried economists the most was actually that it was against free trade.

Keynes had a chapter on mercantilism in the General Theory, but is the most ignored. Perhaps economists don’t want you to find out!

The book The New Mercantilism (a lecture from 1965, first published 1966) starts off like this:

I began to read for the Tripos in the last decade in which the doctrine of the universal benefits of free trade was still dominant. It was imposed upon our young minds as a dogma. We were being received into the fraternity of economists, who knew that free trade is right, unlike the silly plain man who supposed that protection might do his country good, and the misguided politician who supported the vested interests of particular industries. In the dark age before the light of Adam Smith dawned, there had been mercantilists who were both misguided, because they thought it proper for a government to operate in favour of the economic interests of its own country, though at the expense of others, and silly because they thought that it was in a country’s interest to build up a trade surplus by restricting imports. When Keynes attacked the dominant orthodoxy, one of the things that grieved my teachers most was that he should try to rehabilitate the mercantilists, thus damaging the claim of the free-traders to superior benevolence and wisdom.

What is the “new mercantilism”? Joan Robinson says:

…

Nowadays governments are concerned not just to maintain employment, but to make national income grow. Nevertheless, the capitalist world is still always somewhat of a buyer’s market, in the sense that capacity to produce exceeds what can be sold at a profitable price. Some countries have experienced spells of excessive demand, but this corrects itself only too soon. The chronic condition for industrial enterprise is to be looking round anxiously for prospects of sales. Since the total market does not grow fast enough to make room for all, each government feels it a worthy and commendable aim to increase its own share in world activity for the benefit of its own people.

This is the new mercantilism.

Joan Robinson On The Importance Of International Trade For Economic Dynamics

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A few important things to understand macroeconomics/political economy are: national accounts/flow of funds, fiscal policy, endogeneity of money—the financial system in general, the role of demand (or the reverse Say’s Law), behaviour of firms such as pricing, decisions to produce, decisions to hire labour, and international trade and globalisation.

After the economic and financial crisis which started in 2007, economists have conceded to some extent that they have been wrong and accepted some heterodox positions except the most important one: international trade.

Joan Robinson was in my opinion the first economist to truly understand all the issues need to make someone an economist of rank one.

Here’s the opening of a 1973 article:

Joan Robinson on international trade

In this article she tells the reader about how this problem leads to polarisation in the fortunes of nations:

We are now in the era of modern capitalism when every industrial country has a national economic policy of near-full employment and growth of GNP. Every industrial country wants a surplus on income account. ‘Export lead growth’ is the most convenient way of running modem capitalism. Who succeeds at any moment is accidental, largely depending upon historical circumstances and political and psychological influences. Success leads to success and failure engenders failure.

The most important point is that market mechanisms fail to resolve imbalances and this leads to divergence instead of convergence and causes a deflationary bias to the whole world. So in the absence of a market mechanism, an official mechanism is needed.

Link

The Levy Institute’s Macro-Modeling Team — The Pandemic, The Stimulus, And The Future Prospects For The US Economy

Dimitri B. Papadimitriou, Michalis Nikiforos and Gennaro Zezza have a new report on prospects for the US economy.

They argue that while the US economy would enjoy a boom in the near term because of the large fiscal stimulus, the danger is that because of the large trade imbalance because of the different growth rates of the US and its trading partners implies that the continuation would require a large fiscal deficit or the private sector becoming a net borrower.

In my opinion, soon enough when the US economy starts approaching full employment, there will be shouts to cut the fiscal stance because as Michal Kalecki argued captains of industry don’t like full employment. And/or: continuous growth would require high fiscal deficits but as the public debt will continue to rise relative to gdp, politicians will get nervous.

The US government could try to improve net exports by increasing competitiveness of US firms but such things take time. A combination of trying to improve net exports by industrial policy, tariffs and eventually removing the system of free trade is the way forward. It won’t be easy as economists are attached to dogmas.

Paul Krugman On “Economic Nationalism”

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Paul Krugman has a new article titled Wonking Out: Economic Nationalism, Biden-Style, in which he defends Biden’s economic policy which is a deviation from laissez-faire, in particular free trade.

The article has reference to a 250-page report by the White House titled Building Resilient Supply Chains, Revitalizing American Manufacturing, And Fostering Broad-Based Growth,

The United States’ balance of payment and international investment position is unsustainable and it needs to do something to reverse it. Weakness in international trade and offshoring have led to a lot of economic destruction which was exploited by Donald J. Trump. But the Democratic Party—led by Paul Krugman on economics—attacked Trump for deviating from free trade. But now that they are in power, they have learned a bit from their mistakes and economic realism has also taken over. Even during the Democratic Party primary election, the candidates all agreed that something has to be done on international trade and proposed policies to address it.

Elizabeth Warren, for example had a post on Medium titled A Plan For Economic Patriotism.

It’s a shame that the Democratic Party which has voters consisting of more educated people had to copy or at least follow Donald Trump.

Why is manufacturing important? Because (a) manufacturing is important to exports (b) rise in production leads to faster rise in productivity compared to other things. (c) a process of success leads to higher competitiveness of firms—not just price competitiveness but also non-price competitiveness.

The Biden administration has also not rolled back the tariffs imposed on China by Trump.

Instead, Paul Krugman has this spin:

In any case, however, we seem to be entering a new era of worries about the role of the United States in the world economy, this time driven by fears of China. And we’re hearing new calls for industrial policy. I have to admit that I’m not entirely persuaded by these calls. But the rationales for government action are a lot smarter this time around than they were in the 1980s — and, of course, immensely smarter than the economic nationalism of the Trump era, which they superficially resemble.

and:

As you might guess, then, a lot of the Biden-Harris report focuses on national security concerns. National security has always been recognized as a legitimate reason to deviate from free trade. It’s even enshrined in international agreements. Donald Trump gave the national security argument a bad name by abusing it. (Seriously, is America threatened by Canadian aluminum?) But you don’t have to be a Trumpist to worry about our dependence on Chinese rare earths.

Donald Trump is a shady person and so it’s ironic that the Democratic Party was behind. Paul Krugman in fact even spent the last 5 years or so denying that US trade is a problem. Now he is making it look like Biden and Co. are doing something original.

Many people present the recent changes as some kind of break from neoliberalism. In a sense it is but that way of presenting is misleading: finally the US policy makers are furthering US interests, which could be at the expense of the rest of the world. The United States needs policies to promote net exports—to make its international investment position sustainable—but there are various ways of doing it, such as moving to a system away from free trade or even expanding domestic demand to the point of full employment which won’t restrict total imports, and hence isn’t beggar-thy-neighbour and which is good for the whole world.

But it’s a bit like recent changes in fiscal policy: once the US is out of the woods, leaders and the academia will again go back to same old policies. So Krugman’s piece has a lot of praise for free trade which allows him to argue in the future that free trade is good. Another reason is while US deviates from free trade, politicians and pundits can continue to impose free trade on other countries. Finally the aim is to promote policies which are beneficial to oligarchies and oligarchs. Whatever works! Just like “liquidity trap” is used to argue that fiscal expansion can be done now but that neoclassical economics works otherwise, “national security” concern is used now in case of trade.

In summary, the United States needs policies to make net exports rise faster over imports, which Post-Keynesians have argued earlier than anyone, but the Democratic Party has only learned it by losing. They will try to spin this, impose more free trade on the world, while taking protectionist measures and running industrial policy themselves and create a narrative which makes it easier for them to go back to their old ideology.

Neochartalists Arguing For Tax Cuts Again

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There’s a recent article by Randall Wray and Edward Lane for Levy Institute titled Why President Biden Should Eliminate Corporate Taxes To Build Back Better. I mean it’s ridiculous!

Neochartalism (“MMT”) is a trojan horse for reducing tax rates on the super-rich. They tend to argue erroneously  that since output can be expanded by a rise in government expenditure without raising tax rates, it implies that tax rates ought not be raised. Warren Mosler has a proposal to remove most taxes.

To be sure, Wray proposes an alternative without realising that both taxes on profits and alternatives can be done.

Neochartalism is a mix of old and new, with the new part significantly wrong. So it becomes Post-Keynesians in a difficult position as agreeing with many criticisms may sound like helping neoliberals. But with such extreme proposals, Post-Keynesians ought to criticise “MMT” more, simply to distinguish themselves.

Industrial Policy And Global Tax Coordination: Some Changes In How The World Is Run

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Senate Poised To Pass Huge Industrial Policy Bill To Counter China is the headline of a recent news item from The New York Times.

US politicians have come to realise—especially after the rise of Trump—that free trade and globalisation is a major cause of damage to the US economy. The purpose of industrial policy is to make US producers more competitive. This results in increase of exports and fall in imports, relative to gdp.

Wynne Godley had been warning for quite some time on how the US government should address the trade imbalance instead of leaving it to market forces. In March 2003, in an article The U.S. Economy: A Changing Strategic Predicament he said:

The default conclusion is that the U.S. economy will not recover properly in the medium term, but rather will enter a prolonged period of “growth recession.” The only lasting solution will be to get U.S. exports to rise much faster than imports over a prolonged period.

And also suggested non-selected protectionism for the short term.

Another recent news article from NYT is about a global tax coordination. Globalisation has led to a race to the bottom. To raise price competitiveness, countries have been wrongly incentivised to reduce tax rates on firms and this led to some competition between countries to keep reducing tax rates on corporations. And this has led to lot of economic damage.

The Democratic Party of the US has learned from mistakes in the past and is trying to correct them but the Dems are total corporatists and these measures are just for elite preservation. For example, they were talking of reversing Trump’s tax cuts for corporations but the party is a champion in performative politics: it seems they’re not reversing it now.

As Joseph Stiglitz points out, the problem with this 15% tax rate is that it become the de facto the maximum tax rate.

In his last paper, Wynne Godley said on rebalancing:

It is inconceivable that such a large rebalancing could occur without a drastic change in the institutions responsible for running the world economy—a change that would involve placing far less than total reliance on market forces.

Although the steps taken by the US government looks in the right direction, there’s still a large way to go, especially considering how the Democrats pretend to do all sorts of good things. Still far from a Keynes like plan to fine surplus countries and to remove imbalances in balance of payments and international investment position.

How Come The New York Times Is Endorsing Joan Robinson?

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A Democratic Party operative Zachary Carter has an opinion piece The Woman Who Shattered the Myth Of The Free Market for The New York Times.

At first it might be surprising but as Glenn Greenwald says, the left loyalty to the Democratic Party has been the highest ever. The party’s most powerful people also pretend that they have moved radically left. Like a video on equity by Kamala Harris.

So NYT is promoting that the idea that the party has become radical and Joan Robison would approve Biden. If they’ve named Joan Robinson and you criticise their policies (for not doing enough) maybe the problem is with you? Are you rejecting Joan Robison? Propaganda like that.

Adam Tooze says that “Biden’s stimulus is the dawn of a new era” and JW Mason says that “It is the definitive break with neoliberalism”. So plenty of deceit happening there, with people in the left providing cover for it.

Hell, it’s even true that Biden’s policy is a change but a change to keep things constant.

And then Donald Trump was himself promoting large stimulus. He tweeted this:

STIMULUS! Go big or go home!!!

And in a video posted on Twitter, he proposed paying people $2,000 instead of $600, something the Democrats never proposed but pretended to after Trump said it.

But these Democratic Party loyalists won’t call Trump a radical. Rightly but the same standard isn’t extended to Joe Biden. So you see the deceit happening here.